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Parents of students attending burnt-out St. George’s High School asked to visit MOE to facilitate placement
Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Education (MOE) in a notice on Friday, invited parents of students attending the burnt-out St. George’s High School to visit the Department of Education from Monday July 25, to facilitate the placement of the students for the new academic year.
Scenes of the fire at the St. George’s High School
From Monday, the parents can participate in a registration process which will ensure the students be accommodated at another school for the new school year.
On Wednesday, a fire of unknown origin ravaged through the wooden top-half of the school. A teacher and six students were able to escape unharmed from the school before it was completely engulfed in flames thanks to an alert cleaner who noticed smoke coming from a classroom and raised an alarm.
This publication had reported that speaking with reporters on the scene of the fire, the teacher, Miss Juliet Mattis, related how she and her students were able to escape unharmed from the building, which is situated in the heart of the city behind the St. George’s Cathedral.
She first disclosed, “I was doing reading with them, because reading is a problem with the transition class and so I was doing some extra reading session with them even though school has closed…” The teacher added, “We were resuming the second half of the day’s reading programme and then I got a call from the cleaner that there is smoke in a room…”
According to her, the smoke was emitting from the Social Studies Head of Department room sometime after 13:00hrs. She stated that after the cleaner informed her of the smoke, “I told everybody immediately to grab everything and let’s get out of the building and so we did just that. I didn’t remember where my key was because my vehicle was in the compound but thank God, eventually I was able to find it in a bag because I was so confused.”
Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, and Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn were on the scene of the fire.
During an interview with reporters, Minister Manickchand had stated that as a result of the fire, hundreds of students are now displaced. She noted that while space is a major issue, particularly in Georgetown, her ministry will have to find accommodation for the now displaced 421 students.
For its part, the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) in a statement noted that around 13:25hrs, the GFS received a call about a fire at the St. George’s High School. As such, six water tenders from the Central, Alberttown, Campbellville and West Ruimveldt fire stations were dispatched to the location.
According to the statement, the school was destroyed, with only a few items being saved. Notably, investigations are ongoing by the Fire Prevention Department to ascertain the cause of the fire.
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